Movie review: Michael Bay delivers a battle for the ages with new 'Transformers'

Gary Darling

Wednesday

Jun 29, 2011 at 12:01 AMJun 29, 2011 at 2:21 AM

All too often a movie will be judged based on the film that preceded it. I believe that will be the case with the latest from Michael Bay's "Transformers" franchise.

All too often a movie will be judged based on the film that preceded it. I believe that will be the case with the latest from Michael Bay's "Transformers" franchise.

Most people I talked to believe that the second in this series was a huge step back from the first film. Some were worried that the third film was going to continue that trend.

Luckily, Bay delivers a much better product this time around and gives you a final battle that must be seen to believe.

Sam Witwicky (Shia Labeouf) has reached a roadblock in his career. He is a hero that has saved the world countless times, unfortunately no one knows that he has. He has been decorated by the president himself, but no one knows why.

That is because the existence of the transforming robots is still shrouded in mystery and kept under wraps by the government.

This leads to trouble for Sam as he tries to find a job. Because he was wanted by the FBI during one of the previous adventures to save the world, this shows up on his record. This severely hampers an interview because he can't explain why. I mean, who would believe a story about huge transforming robots and him saving the world.

Luckily for Sam, he is the boyfriend of understanding Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), who not only believes him, but also is supportive.

At the same time, Lt. Colonel William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and his NEST team have been working with the Autobots to humans from destroying each other.

During a mission in Chernobyl at the request of the Ukrainian government, they discover a fuel cell to the long lost Autobot ship, The Ark.

Optimus Prime takes this discovery as a lack of faith by the humans because they lied to him about the human's prior knowledge of the robot's existence.

Optimus launches his own mission to retrieve the contents of the ship as well as find the former leader of the Autobots, Sentinel Prime.

But like all things that involve the Transformers, there is more to this situation than meets the eye.

Now I wanna focus on the changes that made this film better than the second.

Well, unlike most critics out there, I believe switching from the cardboard-like Megan Fox to Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Sam Witwicky's love interest was a welcome change.

Not only did I enjoy Rosie's performance more, I just believed in the chemistry between her and Shia more than when Megan was in that role.

Can Rosie act? Well, there were some rough moments, but overall I was happy with her performance, and it didn't seem as mechanical as Fox's portrayals were. Rosie seemed to have more depth to her. She didn't appear so shallow.

Another change is that the human contingent of the NEST force doesn't appear as helpless as before. Several times you see humans bringing down Decipticons without Autobot assistance. I liked that we humans didn't just appear to be cannon fodder.

Then there were the things that I had hoped they would change but didn't, namely the language element.

Now I have been one that hasn't harped much on language before when it comes to the big screen but with this film, I really didn't see the reasoning behind it. It didn't enhance any joke or make any action seem deadlier. It just made me cringe and think of all the young fans that may not get to see this film because of the use of harsh language.

I had really hoped Bay would have dialed that back a little, but he didn't.

Finally I want to talk about what takes this film and separates it from the two previous installments, the battle scenes. This are bigger, louder, and more intense than anything you have seen before on screen. It was like "Blackhawk Down" with robots. This is something that Michael Bay just knows how to do right!

I must applaud the film makers for bringing back life to the franchise with this third installment. No it isn't perfect, but in the end, it doesn't have to be. It has robots, explosions, action and adventure. What more could you ask for?

4 out of 5 stars for pure robot mayhem!

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